Time gave me the middle finger...

Being told that you have cancer in your prostate is certainly a bloody strong wake up call!

I write this from the beautiful area of Les Houches in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Why? Because I grabbed the opportunity to spend a few days one on one with my eldest, Georgia, 25 (yes, believe it or not I am a father to a 25 year old, soon to be 26!).

Following the aftershock in 2021 of being told that I had stage 3 prostate cancer, surgery to remove the unwanted house guest (along with my prostate gland), subsequent radiotherapy and hormone therapy, I certainly look at the allocation of my time much differently now to how I looked at it pre-cancer diagnosis. If you have been in the same or similar conversation, you will know what I am on about.

The house cleaning can wait, emails can join the queue, work priorities can take a back seat in favour to what it is that I want to spend my time on thanks.

Overnight, time for me suddenly became finite.

I was that person that always pretty much expected to be knocking around into my old age and getting to meet my multiple grand-babies! Getting to annoy them with my tales of ‘back in my day’ stories and of course feeding them with skittles and coca-cola and sending them back to their mum and dad as some sort of revenge (no judging please, that is a right for any grandparent!) for all the times that my kids sneaked too many e-numbers into their own little systems when visiting my mum and dad and subsequently then not sleeping that night.

I was also that person that wanted to do a really good job in my career and be known for what I did. Yes, I chased that next promotion, the pay rise and the admiration from my peers & bosses (and it was quite often to the expense of my family) as that, at the time, was what I thought was important to live a fulfilling life…it must be right? That is what society/school/government have been telling me ever since I could understand that it was my duty to pay into the UK tax system, so I must be doing ‘life’ correctly.

I realised quickly after the Dr Akhtar conversation that this all bollocks and it does not actually matter…in the words of Confucius:

“A healthy man wants a thousand things, a sick man only wants one”

This is so true, but is often ignored until something happens or someone tells you that you might just go ahead and die very soon.

So with my new outlook on life, I made the decision to start getting some of the ‘life noise’ out of the diary and start to take control of what is important to me and my nearest & dearest.

One of the first things that we decided to do was to get 6 weeks out from work commitments and drag two of our children (the others flat refused!) for a gentle 500 mile walk across the top of Spain towards Santiago de Compostela, commonly known as the Camino Frances. It was one of the most amazing times for all of us (tears me up to this day and I ain’t joking)…go grab a look:

Ticking off the travel bucket list did not stop there…we have got ourselves to Cairo to see the great pyramids, Mexico to see Chichen Itza and swim in their beautiful Cenote’, attempt to ride two very old bikes across Iowa, USA, pay our respects at Auschwitz, experience the hustle that makes up New Delhi, walk another two (admittedly slightly shorter) Camino routes, give skiing a go as a late bloomer, dip our toes in the turquoise blue seas of the Maldives, hear an orchestra play in the Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna and so much more (you get the point I am sure).

With this we have made many new friends along the way, taken old friends with us on our travels and seen/smelt/felt what the world has to offer for me and those close to me.

All this thanks to a cancer diagnosis…Thank you for the wake up call cancer!

On that note, I am going to go now and spend my remaining precious time here in the French Alps with my daughter (she is having her nanny nap after spending the day on the slopes) and enjoy listening to her moan over dinner that her legs hurt, because I am fortunate enough still to be here to share that with her.

If you are interested in some of things that we have done since getting that shitty news, you can go and have a nosey on our YouTube channel or below on our other SubStack channel:

If you need more support then there are some great charities ready to help:

United Kingdom: https://prostatecanceruk.org

United States: https://www.pcf.org